Modeling and rendering of interiors is used in a great variety of industries, and creating result that is suitable for these big markets is a very big challenge. In this tutorial you will learn how to model, texture, and render an interior design of a bathroom using Maya. The modeling of the bathroom will be achieved using polygons, NURBS, and paint effects. The rendering process will be done with Mental Ray, using techniques that will quickly give you a photorealistic result.

Republished Tutorial

Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in January of 2010 .

Step 80

Step 81

Step 82

Step 83

Change to the front view, and create a circle at the middle of the first drawer.

Step 84

Move the circle to the left just a bit.

Step 85

Go to “Create > CV Curve Tool”.

Step 86

Switch to the top view.

Step 87

Create a curve starting in the middle of the circle.

Step 88

This is what you should have.

Step 89

Select the circle and then the curve. Note: The order of selection is very important.

Step 90

With the selection still active, go to “Surfaces > Extrude”, under the “Surfaces” menu.

Step 91

Select the NURBS object and move it inside the drawer just enough to hide the edges of the object.

Step 92

This is what you should be looking at. If you look closely you will see that it looks very low-res.

Step 93

Create some isoparms along the object.

Step 94

At the “Surfaces” menu, go to “Edit NURBS > Insert Isoparms”.

Step 95

Now the NURBS object should be smooth along the curves.

Step 96

Select the object, and go to “Edit > Duplicate”.

Step 97

Duplicate it 2 times, and move the copies to each of the 3 drawers.

Step 98

Go to “Window > Outliner”.

Step 99

The outliner will a list of all of the objects in the scene.

Step 100

Organize the list and add names to each of your objects. Now that the scene is organized you can close the outliner.

Step 101

Switch to the front view..

Step 102

Go to “Create > CV Curve Tool”.

Step 103

Create a curve like the one in the image below.

Step 104

Select the curve.

Step 105

Under the “Surfaces” menu, go to “Surface > Revolve”.

Step 106

The curve should be revolved, but probably with a wrong pivot position.

Step 107

To change the position of the pivot, go to the “Attributes Editor” of the object, and under the revolve tab, change the “Pivot” values.

Step 108

Remember to leave a hole for the water to flow from.

Step 109

With the object selected, go to “Modify > Center Pivot”. This will position the tools in the middle of the object instead of being far away.

Step 110

Here you can see the move tool at the middle of the object.

Step 111

Position the object and scale it to make it oval shaped instead of a perfect circle.

Step 112

Now you need to create a hole for the object to fit into.

Step 113

Change to the top view.

Step 114

Go to “Create > Polygons Primitives > Cylinder”.

Step 115

Create a cylinder and shape it to match the shape of the object you created before.

Step 116

Position the cylinder.

Step 117

Select the cylinder and then the table. Note: The order of selection is very important.

Step 118

With the selection still active, go to “Mesh > Booleans > Difference”, under the “Polygons” menu.

Step 119

Now you should have a big hole, but it's probably blocked by the top face of the first drawer.

Step 120

Select the top face of the first drawer.

Step 121

Go to “Edit > Delete”.

Step 122

Now everything should be fine.

Step 123

Change to the top view.

Step 124

Go to “Create > NURBS Primitives > Circle.

Step 125

Create a circle were you want to start the object.

Step 126

Change to the side view.

Step 127

Go to “Create > CV Curve Tool”.

Step 128

Create a curve just like the one in the image below.

Step 129

Select the circle and then the curve. Note: The order of selection is very important.

Step 130

With the selection still active, go to “Surfaces > Extrude”, under the “Surfaces” menu.

Step 131

Now you should have a NURBS object that looks low res.

Step 132

To smooth the object, insert a few isoparms along the object.

Step 133

Under the “Surfaces” menu, go to “Edit NURBS > Insert Isoparms”.

Step 134

With these extra isoparms the object should look smooth.

Step 135

Move to the end of the object and add 1 isoparm almost at the edge.

Step 136

Under the “Surfaces” menu, go to “Edit NURBS > Insert Isoparms”.

Step 137

Look at the image below to see if you inserted the isoparm in the correct position.

Step 138

Select the vertexes at the end of the object.

Step 139

Scale them to the inside of the object to add thickness.

Step 140

This is what it should look like.

Step 141

Go to “Create > Polygons Primitives > Pipe”.

Step 142

Create a pipe and position it.

Step 143

Select all of the edges that you want to smooth.

Step 144

With those edges selected, go to “Edit Mesh > Bevel”, under the “Polygons” menu.

Step 145

The object looks really bad now.

Step 146

Move the object so you can see it completely.

Step 147

Select all of the edges from the bottom of the object.

Step 148

With those edges selected, go to “Edit Mesh > Bevel", under the “Polygons” menu.

Step 149

Press number 3 on the keyboard and you should see a nice and smooth object.

Step 150

Move it back into place.

Step 151

With the object selected, go to “Edit > Duplicate”.

Step 152

Move and scale the copy to create a nice shape below the original object.

Step 153

Duplicate it again, and position it at the end of the object.

Step 154

This is what you should have so far.

Step 155

Change to the side view.

Step 156

Go to “Create > NURBS Primitives > Circle”.

Step 157

Position the circle at the side of the NURBS object.

Step 158

Separate the circle from the NURBS object.

Step 159

See the image below for reference.

Step 160

Select the NURBS object and then the circle (the order of selection is very important). Note: You need to be looking though the side view in order for the next steps to work.

Step 161

With the selection still active, go to “Edit NURBS > Project Curve on Surface”, under the “Surfaces” menu.

Step 162

Now you should have a circle over the surface of the NURBS object.

Step 163

With the object selected, go to “Edit NURBS > Trim Tool”, under the “Surfaces” menu.

Step 164

With the tool active, go to its settings (on the right side of the screen), and change the “Selected State” to "Discard".

Step 165

In the active view you will see some wireframes. Click on the wireframe that corresponds to the surface of the circle. A yellow diamond should appear on top of the surface you selected. Press enter on the keyboard.

Step 166

The NURBS object should now have a hole.

Step 167

Select the polygonal object you created earlier.

Step 168

Duplicate it.

Step 169

Move, rotate, and scale the copy to fit inside the hole of the NURBS object.

Step 170

You should leave a small margin between the object and the NURBS object. This will make shadows possible.

Step 171

Go to “Create > Polygon Primitives > Cylinder”.

Step 172

This is the approximate size the cylinder should be.

Step 173

Position, scale, and rotate the object to fit inside the other object you created earlier.

Step 174

Select the edges at the end of the object.

Step 175

Under the “Polygons” menu, go to “Edit Mesh > Bevel (option box)”.

Step 176

Inside the option box, change the “Width” value to 0.0900 (this value depends on the size of your scene), then click on “Bevel”.

Step 177

The object should have a bevel, but it will look worse than before.

Step 178

Select the object, and go to its “Attributes Editor”. Inside the Bevel tab, change the “Smoothing Angle” to 100. This step will make the object look smooth at the edges.

Step 179

Go to “Create > Polygon Primitives > Pipe”.

Step 180

Create a pipe, move, scale, and rotate it so that the object you created before fits inside it.

Step 181

Select all of the edges you want to smooth.

Step 182

Under the “Polygons” menu, go to “Edit Mesh > Bevel (option box)”.

Step 183

Inside the option box, change the “Width” value to 0.390 (this value depends on the size of your scene) and click on “Bevel”.

Step 184

Make sure that your object is beveled.

Step 185

Select one face from the front of the object.

Step 186

Under the “Polygons” menu, go to “Edit Mesh > Extrude (option box)”.

Step 187

Inside the option box, make sure the “Divisions” are set to 1, and click on “Extrude”.

Step 188

Extrude the object as shown.

Step 189

Without deselecting the face, go to “Edit Mesh > Extrude”.

Step 190

Extrude the face less than before and scale it.

Step 191

Without deselecting the face, go once more to “Edit Mesh > Extrude”.

Step 192

Extrude the face and leave it the same size.

Step 193

This is what you should have. Now you only need to smooth the shape.

Step 194

Under the “Polygons” menu, go to “Edit Mesh > Insert Edge Loop Tool”.

Step 195

Create some edge loops in locations where you want to maintain the shape of the object.

Step 196

When you are finished, press number 3 on the keyboard, and watch how your object looks nice and smooth.

Step 197

This is how your scene should look at this step of the tutorial.

Step 198

Go to “Window > General Editors > Visor”.

Step 199

Inside the “Visor” window, go to the “Paint Effects” tab, and scroll down to the “plantsMesh” folder.

Step 200

Inside that folder, select the “rubberPlantPotted…”.

Step 201

Zoom in close to the floor (the plant is going to be small).

Step 202

Click and drag until the plant is half completed.

Step 203

Release the click, and you will see the plant grow to its final shape.

Step 204

Select the plant and go to “Modify > Center Pivot”.

Step 205

Now you will see the tools right in the middle of the plant.

Step 206

Move and scale the plant to put it in the right place.

Step 207

Select the plant.

Step 208

Go to “Modify > Convert > Paint Effects to Polygons”.

Step 209

Now your plant is a polygonal object.

Step 210

Select all objects of the plant, and press number 3 on the keyboard to smooth its geometry.

Step 211

This is how it should look.

Step 212

Wireframe of the scene.

Step 213

Now you need to create the wall and floor. Go to “Create > Polygon Primitives > Plane”.